


The Grief at the Center of Your Dream

by embroiderama



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 02:12:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal held it together while he was back in prison after Kate's death, but now that he's out? He would be fine if only he could sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grief at the Center of Your Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://joulez217.livejournal.com/profile)[**joulez217**](http://joulez217.livejournal.com/)'s [prompt](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/43570.html?thread=394802#t394802) at [](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/)**whitecollarhc**. Title borrowed from Margaret Atwood.

Neal thought it had been better in prison, almost. Being behind bars had the effect of making Neal live almost entirely in the moment, each day disappearing behind him as the next began. In prison, a man who was too focused on the past or the future was risking a dangerous level of distraction at best, insanity at worst. Neal wasn't interested in either of those options.

He kept his eyes open, his mind in the present. With all the dangers of a life behind bars, he kept himself alive, safe and sane. And Peter came though, got Neal released again to the relative freedom of the anklet, the radius, the job. He had the city again, and June and Mozzie, and he had the opportunity to find out who had truly been behind Kate's death and the hope of helping Peter take that man down.

He was putting on Byron's suits and joking with Peter, and everything should've been fine. Relatively fine. But every day it became more clear to Neal that nothing was okay anymore, that the safety and sanity he'd cosseted inside was burning away in the daylight, blowing away in the fresh air of freedom.

Neal loved the city in all of its seasons and moods--except for the dirty slush that followed snow; he'd have to be truly insane to enjoy that. He loved the sharp chill of a winter morning and the sticky heat of a summer afternoon. He'd loved the city in the middle of the night, before--slipping into forbidden places unseen or laughing through the streets with Kate for all the world to see.

But he was growing too familiar with the small hours, too used to the relative quiet of the streets with so much less than their usual traffic. He pushed his way through each day, dragging his exhaustion with him like a weight on his back, and came home most days to Mozzie and the search for the music box. When he was finally alone, he'd shed his clothes, crawl onto the bed and drop deep into sleep.

Then every night, every night without fail, he'd open his eyes after two or three hours to a wakefulness that was blurry and weak and absolute. He almost wished he were having nightmares because then at least he'd have an excuse. Instead, every night he slept like the dead and woke like lazarus but yearned for sleep the way he'd never let himself yearn for freedom, inside. He tried chamomile tea and tinctures from the health food store, but they did nothing except help him feel a bit more calm as he sat on the terrace staring up at the blank nighttime sky.

He tried over-the-counter sleeping pills from the drug store, and he woke as early as always but felt strangely uncoordinated as he stumbled from bed. Vague shapes moved just at the edges of his peripheral vision, and he had to force himself not to turn his head to follow them. He felt acutely alone, then allowed himself a fantasy of calling Peter, passing the night playing chess, even if Neal knew he'd lose in his present state. The world around him felt more solid by the time the sun rose, and Neal trashed the rest of the pills, shoving them deep down under three days worth of coffee grounds.

~~~

During the day, at work with Peter in the office or out working on cases, Neal could forget about sleep and no sleep and long silent mornings. He could be alive and normal, even if it took more coffee than his stomach particularly appreciated to keep himself on track. He pasted on his con man's smile and did the work at hand, even if he could feel the edges of that mask curling up every time he spaced out in the middle of a meeting. He bit the inside of his lip until it was sore to keep from yawning, and still he felt Peter watching him, the weight of that gaze that had followed him for years.

Even Mozzie was noticing, and as hyperaware as Mozzie could be when it came to issues like government surveillance he wasn't ordinarily very perceptive about other human beings.  He brought dinner to their evening confab, and as much as Neal normally liked the gluten-free soy cheese pizzas Mozzie bought he couldn't bring himself to do more than pick at it. He hadn't had any coffee since leaving the office, but his stomach wouldn't stop churning, the bitter taste of coffee haunting him.

"Okay, what's wrong with you?" Mozzie asked, his eyes sharp behind his glasses.

Neal rubbed at his neck, trying to beat back the headache that throbbed all the more at the attention from Mozzie. "I'm just tired."

"You think?"

Neal sighed. "I really don't want to talk about it, Moz."

Mozzie stared at him for a long moment and then let it go, but Neal knew that now that Mozzie had decided there was a problem he wouldn't let it go for long.

The next day, Neal fell asleep in the car. Peter was driving them out to the Hamptons to investigate a theft from the private collection of a man with a taste for Cubists (and a security system that wasn't as good as he thought it was, not that Neal could confess to any direct knowledge of that), and while they were driving toward the BQE Neal was talking about the market for early 20th century European art. Then, suddenly, the car stopped and Neal opened his eyes to see that they were at a traffic light, clearly in Suffolk County.

"What?" Neal asked, confused.

"You have a nice nap?" Peter asked, and Neal chafed at the amusement mixed in concern in his expression.

"I don't take naps." Neal heard the petulance in his voice and wished he'd kept his mouth shut.

"Evidence would suggest otherwise." The light changed, and Peter moved forward, keeping his eyes on the road. "Are you spending too much time planning things I shouldn't know anything about?"

"I'm fine," Neal said, refusing to answer the question.

~~~

A few days later, when Peter found him in the restroom at the office throwing up the breakfast he hadn't felt like eating and the far-too many espressos he'd needed to stay alert, Neal thought about telling him everything--how tired he was, how he couldn't sleep more than a few hours each night even though his whole body ached for sleep--but the words choked in his throat and he walked past Peter to sip at a handful of water from the sink.

"What going on with you?" Peter asked, his voice painfully kind.

"There was something wrong with the cream cheese on that bagel." Neal made a face, trying to sell the lie.

"Uh-huh. Why don't you go home, take the rest of the day as a sick day?"

"I don't get sick days." Neal tried to move toward the door, but Peter stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"You do if I say you do." Peter sighed and shook his head. "Neal, you don't look good. Hughes wants you to go get a physical. And a drug test."

Humiliation burned in Neal's chest, and he wanted to scream, but he forced himself to swallow it down. "Hughes thinks I'm on drugs?"

"Hughes isn't blind and he wants to cover his bases. I can hold onto the form for a few days, but I'm going to have to have something for him by next week. Is there anything we need to worry about?"

"I'm not on _drugs_ ," Neal bit out.

"I'm aware of that, Neal. What about anything else?"

"I'm just _tired_ ," Neal said, regretting it as veered too close to the truth, "and I ate some bad cream cheese. I don't need a physical."

Peter looked like he was going to argue then sighed. "Look, go home and rest. I'll wait a couple days and see if Hughes still wants you to get checked out. If he does, there's nothing I can do about it."

Neal really didn't want to go home, but if it got him out of the indignities of a physical he'd take what he could get. "Fine, okay."

Peter let him pass when he headed for the door and then followed him out into the hallway. "And Neal, make sure you go home. I'll keep an eye on your tracking data if I have to."

"Of course."

Neal walked home, halfway hoping the long walk would help him actually sleep and halfway just decreasing the amount of time he'd have to spend at home. The apartment was beautiful, it could scarcely be better, but after so many hours sitting within and near its walls wishing for sleep or comfort or oblivion he was tired of seeing it, tired of looking at his gorgeous, useless bed. Just, tired.

He'd been avoiding alcohol, knowing that it only ever caused him to sleep restlessly, but he was desperate enough for change that he opened a bottle of red wine and sat at his kitchen table with a book and the bottle, and by early afternoon the bottle was halfway empty and Neal was nodding over his book. He crawled into bed, praying for a miracle, but woke in time to walk out on the terrace and lean on the balustrade, groggily watching the afternoon rush hour traffic creeping by below.

The night was impossibly long, sleep entirely evasive, and when he realized that he was sitting at the table staring into space like some kind of zombie he started up the coffee pot even though it was just past midnight. He thought about how obvious it clearly was to everybody that he was falling apart. Hughes sitting in his office and ordering a drug test. Mozzie and Peter with their kind, pressing words. His hands shook and his breath shook and every moment until dawn passed with exquisite slowness.

As early as was reasonable, he left to walk to work, hoping the walk and the triple shot he got from Starbucks would help him feel truly awake by the time he got to work. He knew he needed to pull himself together and stop acting like a basket case so that he could get Hughes--and Peter--off his back. It was maddening, that people were talking about what was wrong with him; he needed to put a stop to the whole thing.

By the time he arrived in the office, Peter was already there, working behind his desk even though most of the agents in the department had yet to arrive. There was something about the empty openness of the bullpen, the darkness from the glassed-in offices, that felt off and unreal, as if Neal were only dreaming that he was awake. He looked down at himself, expecting to see some lack of clothes--no pants or bare feet or maybe his whole body bared to the dreaming world, but all he saw was his second favorite of Byron's suits, a tie that could have been tied better, black cap-toe shoes. He blinked, reminded himself that he'd have to _sleep_ to dream all of this, so he had to be awake. His heart raced, and he breathed through it then walked down the hall to the break room and grabbed a cup of coffee before heading up to Peter's office.

"Good morning," Neal said, trying to sound chipper without overselling it.

Peter glanced up and gave Neal an assessing look before waving him into the office. "How are you feeling? Did you get any rest?"

"Yes, I rested." It wasn't a lie, exactly. "And I'm fine. What are we working on?"

"Jones and Diana are both en route. Once they get here, we'll meet in the small conference room and break down the list of suspects for the securities fraud case, see if we can put together enough evidence to get a warrant."

Neal tried to remember what securities fraud case Peter was talking about, and he felt a rush of panic, tightness in his chest and a bitter taste in his mouth at the thought that maybe he was really losing it, maybe he couldn't even do his job, maybe they'd send him back to prison, and--

"Neal?"

Neal looked back up at Peter and breathed in and out in steady measures.

"Sorry, we started the case yesterday morning but I had you looking at those possible counterfeits before you went home, so this one is new to you." He tucked papers into the file in front of him and folded it closed. "Take this, get caught up before the meeting."

"Thanks." Neal stood and took the file in hand but Peter didn't release it.

"You sure you feel okay?"

"I'm good." Neal waggled the empty cup in his left hand. "Just need a refill."

Peter didn't look entirely convinced, but he let the file go and Neal headed downstairs to get more coffee and try to take in as much of the file as possible before he had to prove his usefulness yet again.

~~~

Half an hour into working through the case with Peter, Diana and Jones, Neal could feel the haze of sleepiness clouding over his thoughts again. His bladder was further distracting him with its demands so when the group settled into a quiet lull, everybody studying the files, Neal nudged Peter's arm.

"I'll be right back."

Peter looked at him for a moment longer than normal before nodding. "Sure."

Neal struggled to push back from the table, cursing himself for picking a chair with sticky casters, then took a deep breath into suddenly heavy-feeling lungs and stood. The room spun around him, and he wasn't sure if he was actually standing or not but he groped for the back of his chair as the floor turned soft under his feet and the lights in the room dimmed everything to gray. Neal's heart raced as he tried to find his balance, and he jerked back from the touch of a hand on his arm just as gray faded to black.

The next thing Neal was aware of was that his head hurt, and he opened his eyes to see Peter looming over him, his face far bigger and closer than it should've been. "Neal? Can you hear me? Neal?"

Neal swallowed hard past the bitter taste of panic in his mouth and nodded. "Yeah. Sorry."

Peter let out a breath and closed his eyes, looking relieved. "Okay, you want to sit up?"

Neal nodded, and Peter put an arm under his back and hauled him up until he could lean against the wall. He saw other legs standing in front of him and looked up to see Diana and Jones. "When'd you guys get here?" They both arched their eyebrows in unison, and Neal wanted to laugh but he was too tired to bother.

"Can somebody get a bottle of water?" Peter asked before turning back to look at him. "Neal, what's going on with you?"

Neal wasn't really sure, but he wasn't about to tell Peter that. "I'm fine, just tripped."

"Uh-huh, I don't think so."

"Here."

Neal startled at Diana's voice suddenly so close and turned to see her crouching next to Peter with an open bottle of water in her hand. She held it out, and Neal took it, staring at the way his hand shook, the water trembling inside the clear plastic. Peter's hands felt amazingly steady as he took the bottle from Neal's hands and kept a grip on his shoulder.

"Jones, help me get him up. I'm driving you to the hospital, Neal."

"No, I'm fine." Neal shook his head, and the room turned gray around him for a moment.

"You're pale as hell, Caffrey," Diana said as she stood and moved back.

"I don't want to go to the hospital," Neal whispered.

"Guess what, I don't care. Clinton?"

"I can stand up," Neal argued, and he got his legs under himself but halfway up he felt his knees giving way until Peter and Jones caught him and pulled him upright. The room swayed around him and Neal muttered, "Maybe not."

The walk down to Peter's car and the trip to the hospital passed in a haze, and Neal had a vague impression of sitting in a plastic chair and leaning against Peter. When things became clearer, he was reclining on a gurney, shivering in his suit pants and undershirt while a bored-looking woman in scrubs took his blood pressure. He had an IV in his arm and sticky pads on his chest leading to a heart monitor, and Peter was nowhere to be seen.

Before Neal could figure out what question to ask, a man in a white lab coat came sweeping through the curtain around Neal's bed. "Hello, Mr. Caffrey, I'm Dr. Reyes. You're looking more alert."

"I'm fine. Can I get out of here?"

"I think we'll be releasing you soon, but I wouldn't say you're fine." The doctor consulted the chart in his hands. "Let's see, low blood sugar, low blood pressure, mild dehydration and caffeine overdose. Is there a reason you've been trying to replace food and sleep with coffee and espresso?"

Neal looked down at his hands in his lap, the IV line where it entered the back of his hand grotesquely. He thought about lying and realized he didn't have the wherewithal to come up with a believable story or the energy to sell it; he sighed and told the truth. "I'm just having a hard time sleeping lately."

"How much sleep are you getting each night?"

Neal shrugged. "Two hours. Sometimes three."

Dr. Reyes continued to quiz him on his habits and what remedies Neal had tried for his insomnia. Neal answered every question and he sat through the doctor's brief lecture on taking better care of himself. Finally, Dr. Reyes told Neal that he'd be discharged when his IV finished, assuming the caffeine didn't cause his heart to do anything too interesting, and that his discharge paperwork would come with a prescription for a sleep aid and a referral to a psychologist.

Neal had no intention of following through with either suggestion, but he nodded. He nodded again when the doctor asked if Neal wanted to see his FBI agent friend, and less than a minute after the doctor left Neal alone, Peter stepped through the gap in the curtain, concern shadowing his features.

"You look better," Peter said, leaning against Neal's bed.

"I try," Neal said, trying for lightness.

Peter shook his head. "I didn't say you look _good_. You still look like hell, but at least you have some color in your face now."

"Great. Peter, I'm sorry about this whole commotion."

"You don't need to apologize for needing help, but you should've asked for help at some point before keeling over in the conference room."

"It's just embarrassing. All of this because I can't make myself sleep." Neal looked down at his hands again because Peter's concerned face was too much.

"Listen, my first year with the Bureau I got involved in a case that went all wrong. I went through Quantico, got all the firearms and tactical training with everybody else, but as far as I was concerned I was going to be working with paper and numbers and talking to people who were...devious, maybe, but not a serious threat to life and limb. The case was just this guy who was embezzling money from the company where he worked, but when we went to talk to him it went bad." Peter's face was drawn tight, his eyes distant as he focused on the past. "Dramatically bad. I didn't have a scratch on me, but I couldn't sleep more than a few hours a night."

Neal didn't know what to say, but Peter just took a deep breath and continued. "I went the opposite direction from you, gained twenty pounds from all the vending machine snacks I thought would give me energy to get through the day and all the beer I drank trying to put myself to sleep at night. I ended up getting the flu, and it just knocked me flat. I crawled home to my parents' house and slept for a week, and after that things started to get back to normal. I also stopped ducking my appointments with the shrink my supervisory agent wanted me to see, so there's that."

"Twenty pounds, huh? Did you have the mustache then, too?"

Peter glared, but there was no heat in it. "Don't start. Now, when the doctor cuts you loose, I want to take you back to my house."

Neal felt a strange mixture of horror at being so pathetic that Peter wanted to take him home and babysit him and gratitude that he could get a break from staring at the same walls, the same patch of sky. "That's really not necessary."

"Call it a change of scenery."

The idea of Peter understanding him that well made a part of Neal want to run even while it made another part of him want to stop, to stay, to be the person Peter thought he could be. "Okay," he said. "Okay."

~~~

Peter wanted to stop on the way to Brooklyn to fill Neal's prescription, but Neal refused and held strong on his refusal. The over-the-counter medicine had been bad enough, and Neal didn't like the idea of being drugged asleep, vulnerable. A different house, a different room, a different bed--he hoped they would be enough to break the cycle of his sleeplessness. If he could get even five or six hours he thought he would feel better, good enough to get through the day, to function.

At the house, Peter told Neal to go rest before El came home with dinner. Neal knew that if he slept so early he'd spend the whole night awake again, so he just sat on the guest room bed, warm inside a set of Peter's sweats, and read travel magazines until El came to collect him. Peter's appraising gaze made it clear that Neal's failure to sleep was noted, but he didn't say anything. Neal's stomach still felt sensitive and uncertain but he picked at the dim sum Elizabeth had brought home, and they lingered over the food long enough that he left the table feeling full.

Exhaustion still weighed him down, an invisible load on his back, and his mind was nowhere near as sharp and clear as usual, but he felt steadier than he'd been in days. He spent the rest of the evening watching TV with El and Peter, listening to them talk about business and the upcoming wedding of some distant family member during the slow parts. When El wrapped her arms around him on her way to bed, Neal let himself sink into her embrace just long enough to remember that he was well and truly alone.

He stripped down to his boxers and climbed between the sheets of the guest bed just after 11pm and hoped that the sleep he felt tugging at him would keep him for longer than a couple of hours--all night, all day, however long it took for him to feel real again. When he woke at 1:30am, he rolled over and pressed his face into the cool pillow. He begged his body to fall back to sleep, but he was as resolutely awake as he'd been every other morning.

Neal couldn't stand to be in the bed now that it had so totally failed to help him sleep, so he got up and pulled on Peter's oversize sweatpants before silently padding down the stairs. He wouldn't be able to make any coffee without waking Peter and El, but he knew where they kept teabags, and the kettle would be quiet enough as long as he caught it before it whistled.

"Good morning," Peter said from the dark void of the living room, startling Neal as he was walking toward the kitchen.

Neal froze, feeling like he'd been caught breaking in. "Uh, hey Peter. What are you doing awake?"

"I'd ask you the same thing if I didn't already know the answer."

"I'm just going to make some tea."

"Knock yourself out."

On the shelf in the kitchen where El usually had canisters of assam and darjeeling and gunpowder green, Neal found only herbal tea: peppermint, rooibos chai, some kind of raspberry blend. He didn't need Mozzie's brand of paranoia to see the evidence of conspiracy. Neal walked back to the living room, and the dim light from the lamp on the end table was enough for Neal to make out the grim satisfaction on Peter's face.

"Where's the regular tea?"

"There should be plenty of tea in the kitchen."

"You know what I mean. _Peter_."

"And you know what _I_ mean. This morning, your heart was doing double-time from too much caffeine; it's the last thing you need."

Neal crossed his arms over his chest, feeling conspicuously naked with no shirt on. "I need it. I won't be able to go back to sleep either way, but I don't want to feel like a zombie."

"Then you should get that prescription filled." Peter stood up, then grabbed a folded afghan from a basket on the floor and tossed it at Neal. "Sit down, I'll make the tea. I'm tired of sitting here anyway."

"You didn't have to pull a stakeout in your own home, you know."

"I had to make sure you didn't tear the place apart looking for a fix. Or leave and go wandering the streets."

"Wandering the streets," Neal parroted back, mockingly, but he pulled the afghan around his shoulders and sat down in the corner of the couch, pulling his bare feet up to tuck them under his knees. The tea, when Peter brought it, was peppermint, hot and soothing if a bit too sweet. Peter deposited a plate of cheese and crackers on the table next to Neal's elbow then sat back down in his chair.

Satchmo lifted his head from his bed in the corner of the room and trotted over to stretch out next to the couch, right in the path where any crumbs might fall. "Your dog's an opportunist," Neal said, then looked over to see Peter asleep in his chair, his face oddly soft and relaxed. Neal knew he could get up now, scrounge around for some real tea, but he had to admit that Peter was right. The doctor had told Neal to avoid caffeine until he was sleeping better, and while Neal had never been one to take a doctor's word as gospel he really didn't want a repeat of his performance in the conference room. In retrospect it was humiliating, but at the time the confusion and loss of control had been scary in a way he'd never admit to anybody else.

Neal thought about getting up and going back to bed, but he was comfortable on the sofa, and there was something nice about sharing the room with Peter and his dog, about watching Peter sleep. Neal wasn't hungry, but the plate of food next to him was convenient so he picked up a piece of cheese to nibble and passed a couple of crackers down to Satchmo's waiting maw.

Neal picked up the book that was sitting on the end table, a thick hardcover biography of FDR, but his eyes were too bleary to focus on the small print, especially in the dimly lit room, and the attempt was only making his head ache so he put the book back where he'd found it. He sipped his cooling tea and listened to Peter and Satchmo breathe as occasional passing cars splashed trails of light through the living room. The night didn't pass any more quickly than it had back in his rooms at June's house, but not being alone--Neal thought he could live with that.

~~~

"Are you _crazy_?" Peter gestured with his travel mug of coffee--coffee he wouldn't allow Neal to touch--and ran his other hand over his face. "What am I talking about, obviously you're crazy. You _collapsed_ in the office yesterday, you went to the hospital then came here and got all of two hours of sleep, and you think you're going in to work today?"

"I didn't collapse, I got dizzy."

"You turned white and passed out."

"Briefly."

"Yes, I'm very grateful you woke up instead of going into a coma there in the middle of the White Collar Division offices because that would've been difficult to explain. Not nearly as difficult as it'll be for me to explain if I let you come in to work today and something happens to land you back in the hospital."

Neal took a breath and stepped back mentally. Clearly, arguing that he was fine wasn't getting him anywhere, but the idea of sitting around going out of his head all day made him feel ill. Sometimes the truth was the best con. "Peter, I really don't want to sit at home all day. What if I just come in and stay at my desk, or in your office if you want. I'll drink water and eat lunch and everything."

Peter put his free hand on his hip and looked around like somebody might be there to back him up. Unfortunately for him, Elizabeth had left first thing in the morning, rushing to a breakfast meeting with a client. "Okay, we'll go to June's. You'll get a shower and change, and if nothing happens to make me suspect you're on the brink of collapse you can come in to the office. That's a big if."

"Great. Thank you."

Finally, they left the house to drive uptown to June's, and Neal did his best to project a hale and hearty image. In a sense, he felt better since his ER visit; with the caffeine out of his system he wasn't having the shakes anymore, and he knew the fluids had helped. On the other hand, he had a wicked caffeine-withdrawal headache, and the Advils he'd taken to counteract that were causing about as much turmoil in his stomach as the coffee had. And without the coffee giving him artificial energy, Neal had to concentrate on not looking and acting like a member of the walking dead.

At June's, Neal wasn't about to lag behind Peter, but the climb up to his apartment felt much longer than usual and by the time they reached the top Neal felt dizzy, his pulse fluttering in his throat. Once he sat down on his bed to take off his jacket and shoes he felt better, and he didn't think Peter had noticed anything. He knew he just needed to shower, to feel clean and new and awake, and maybe after another day of work he could go back to Peter's again and sleep this time, really sleep.

Peter sat down at the kitchen table and pulled a file from his briefcase, conspicuously not paying attention to Neal, and while he would've appreciated being alone in his own apartment Neal grudgingly appreciated the attempt at giving him privacy. He grabbed his robe and traipsed off to the bathroom half-dressed. The hot shower felt wonderful, relaxing the tense muscles in Neal's back and shoulders and easing his headache, but after a few minutes his head spun, the heat and humidity conspiring to make him woozy.

He slapped a hand flat on the tile wall while he finished getting clean then stumbled out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist, and sat on the closed toilet with his head in his hands. He needed air and the bathroom's ancient fan was doing little to clear the steam, so Neal reached out and opened the door a crack before lowering his head again. He needed to get himself together before Peter decided to haul him off to another doctor or drug him against his will. He was so focused on taking slow, steady breaths that the sudden sound of a knock and Peter's voice startled him.

"Neal, you okay in there?"

Neal sat up with a jolt, like a man awakened from a nightmare. "Jesus, Peter, I'm fine." Neal stood and slammed the door shut before Peter could push his way inside then slipped on his robe and tied it snuggly around his waist. He looked at himself in the foggy mirror and saw a vague, pale face-shape, gray voids where the eyes should be, all the lines blurred beyond recognition; he wondered if that was what Peter saw, too, when he looked at him with so much concern. Neal wanted to appreciate the concern, but it felt too much like condescension, and Neal had taken care of himself for a long time, too long to deserve Peter treating him like a wayward child.

Taking a deep breath, Neal opened the bathroom door and glared at Peter where he was hovering in the hallway. "I'm fine," he bit out.

"Yeah, I see that."

There it was again, that condescension, and Neal turned around to face Peter. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Peter raised his hands up and sighed, as if Neal were some irrational child. "You really don't look well, that's all."

"Oh, great, thank you. I'm trying, you know, but it's never good enough for you, is it?"

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Neal, I'm not sure where this is coming from. God knows you're not perfect, but you work hard, you're smarter than any one of those Harvard guys. You're more than good enough."

"Smart, huh?" A new wave of anger swept through Neal, and he swallowed it down. "If I'm so smart, then why am I always one step behind? Why couldn't I figure out what was going on before it was too late?" Neal felt himself breathing hard and fast, and the burning in his lungs reminded him of smoke and flames, debris raining down, screams tearing their way out of his throat.

"Neal?" Peter stepped in closer, but Neal shoved him away, enjoying the startled look in Peter's eyes.

"If I'm so smart, why couldn't I--" Neal closed his eyes and saw Kate, that last glimpse of her on the plane, the wasted last chance he had to save her. His stomach rolled and clenched, and he didn't want to open his eyes and see Peter standing there looking at him like he would be okay if only he got a good night's sleep. "Why couldn't I save Kate?" The semi-darkness behind Neal's eyes rippled and folded, and he fell to his knees as his stomach shuddered, forcing up the toast and juice he'd managed to eat for breakfast. It tasted bitter, like failure.

Then Peter's hands were on his shoulders, pulling him up, and Neal didn't bother opening his eyes as Peter led him to the kitchen and sat him down in a chair. His anger was gone, leaving sadness and embarrassment behind, so Neal folded his arms together on the table and slumped forward to rest his head on his forearms. He felt Peter's hand ruffle through his hair, then Peter walked away and Neal was alone with his darkness until he heard Peter's returning footsteps and then the scrape of Peter pulling out the chair next to Neal and sitting down.

Neal sighed at the fact that he'd only be able to hide for so long. "I'm sorry," he said to the table, to his lap, to the space between his arms.

"I'm sorry, too," Peter said, his voice deep and calm. "I should've got you in to talk to somebody before things got this bad, but at this point I don't think it's going to do any good unless you can get some _sleep_."

Neal sat up, blinking at the light in the room, and leaned agains the ladder-back of the chair. "I guess."

"Will you please try the prescription the ER doctor gave you? If you don't like how they make you feel, I'll get you in somewhere, get some other prescription. But I hate to see you making yourself sick this way, Neal."

It felt like defeat, but Neal nodded. "Okay."

"'Okay,' as in you'll get the prescription filled and actually take the pills today?"

"Yes. I just--" Neal squirmed at the thought of being knocked out, unable to wake if something happened. "I don't like the thought of being so--" The word burned like shame but he forced himself to say it anyway. "Vulnerable."

Peter reached over and cupped his hand behind Neal's neck, his hand warm and supportive, pulling out some of the tension lurking there. "You won't be alone. I promise."

Neal nodded weakly, letting some of his weight push back into the steady strength of Peter's hand for a moment until a cool breeze reminded him that he was still dressed only in his robe. "I need to get dressed."

Peter pulled his hand back and looked at his files on the table. " _Don't_ get dressed for work. We're going to the pharmacy and then back to the house so pack whatever you need."

Getting dressed took longer than it should have, especially considering Neal was wearing jeans and a turtle-neck rather than a three-piece suit, but finally he was decently dressed and had his pajamas, clean socks and underwear and his toiletry kit packed in one of the old-fashioned carry-on bags from Byron's closet. Peter drove to the pharmacy, and after Neal dropped off his prescription Peter dragged him down the block to pick up food and pushed a strawberry smoothie into Neal's hands, not even asking if he wanted it.

Neal loved strawberries but he knew they made Peter itch so his only options were drinking the smoothie or throwing it out. He drank it, sipping at it through the slow ride to Brooklyn. With anybody else, the silence in the car would have felt judgmental, and the humiliation of breaking down in front of Peter did rankle at Neal's pride, but somehow Peter's silence was comfortable. Instead of feeling as though things that needed to be said were being withheld, Neal had the impression that nothing needed to be said, that enough had been discussed, at least for now.

When they finally arrived back at Peter's house, it felt like at least a day since they'd left rather than a couple of hours. Neal sat on the side of the guest room bed and stared at the bottle of pills. He read through all the warnings on the paper stapled to the pharmacy bag while Peter sat a few feet away, implacable but not hurrying. Finally, Neal swallowed one of the pills then took the Tylenols Peter handed him because of course Peter would know that he still had a headache, that his whole body ached with exhaustion. He drank down the last sips of his smoothie, the straw gurgling against the bottom of the cup, then stood and pulled the pajama pants out of his bag.

"I'm good," he said, waiting for Peter to leave. "I'm just going to sleep. Hopefully."

"I'll be right downstairs. I'm not going anywhere."

Neal hated that he needed that reassurance, but he couldn't deny it. "Thanks."

Peter nodded and left, closing the bedroom door behind him. The pill seemed to be working already, weighting down Neal's eyelids, so he undressed, pulled on his soft, loose pants, and climbed between the sheets. The comforter felt heavier than it had the night before, the mattress softer as he sank down into it, and then Neal was asleep.

When Neal woke, he opened his eyes to see dim light filtering in through the blinds. He'd gone to sleep in the late morning, which meant he'd managed almost eight hours of sleep. He thought about staying in bed to contemplate the miracle of so much sleep, but his back was stiff and his bladder was sending out urgent demands, so he climbed out of bed, pulled on a t-shirt and made his way out into the hall.

He could hear voices downstairs, so after a quick visit to the bathroom he padded down the steps. Peter and Elizabeth were maneuvering around each other in the kitchen, and they both smiled when they saw him.

"Good morning, Neal!" El walked over and pulled Neal into a quick hug.

"Good evening, and I'm sorry to be an imposition. I'm sure you're getting ready for dinner, so I can head home--"

"El's right, it's _good morning_ ," Peter interjected. "Dinner was about ten hours ago."

"But--" Neal looked more closely at Peter and saw he was wearing a different suit than he'd been when he brought Neal home. He was expecting to see Peter in sweats or jeans, not another one of his department store suits. He blinked, utterly confused. "How long did I sleep?"

"About twenty hours, I think." El reached out and lightly squeezed his arm. "Obviously you needed it, but we were going to check on you again if you didn't wake up soon."

"Again?" Neal shook his head. "Actually, I don't want to know. Twenty hours?"

"You look a lot better. How do you feel?"

"A little foggy, but I guess that's what I get for sleeping so long."

Peter tilted his head in agreement. "Listen, I want you to stay here today, or I can drop you at June's if you prefer. El's working from home this morning so she'll probably make french toast if you play your cards right."

"Tempting as that is, I'd rather just get back to work, back to normal."

"Neal, I want you back to normal too, but it's pretty obvious that ignoring things isn't getting that job done. Am I wrong?"

Neal wanted to argue, but he couldn't think of anything convincing so he kept quiet.

"Right," Peter said after a long moment. "Today, you stay here, rest, eat my wife's french toast to save Satchmo from getting any fatter than he already is. Tomorrow, you have an appointment, and we'll take it from there. I need you sharp, okay?"

Neal nodded and walked over to poke through the _New York Times_ spread out on the dining room table. He waved to Peter when he left and, as instructed, charmed Elizabeth into making french toast. The food was delicious, the egg mixture with the right balance of cinnamon and vanilla soaked into thick slices of challah bread. Butter. Real maple syrup. Elizabeth's sparkling gossip about the neighborhood.

He could see now that Peter was right; in the weeks since getting out of prison again Neal had lost his edge, his mind too blunt to see through the puzzle of the music box, his senses too dull to do his best work with Peter. He resolved to do whatever he had to do to get on top of his emotions and the wayward functions of his body, to get back to normal, to hone his edge. After all, his mind and his body were his best weapons, and he had a feeling that the time was coming when he'd need them to be sharper than ever.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a timestamp [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2166360/chapters/4737564).


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